Public cloud services are a form of cloud computing in which an organization relies on a third-party cloud service provider for services such as servers, data storage, applications, enterprise computations, and the like, which are delivered to the organization through the Internet. Public cloud services can free companies from the expensive costs of having to purchase, manage and maintain their own on-premises hardware and software infrastructure. Public clouds are also deployed significantly faster and with more scalability and accessibility than on-premises infrastructure as a result of the public cloud provider's expertise and existing infrastructure. Organization are even able to develop their own applications while having the applications hosted by the public cloud.
However, public cloud services are typically provided by third parties giving these third parties access to sensitive information of the organization and its members. The sensitive information includes personally identifiable information (PII) which is any information about an individual (or a user device associated with the individual) which can be used to distinguish or trace the individual's identity. PII is often exploited by criminals for identity theft, or to aid in the planning of criminal acts. Because of the threat of theft of PII, many jurisdictions have passed legislation requiring the protection of PII. In addition, organizations are also motivated to protect private company information that is sensitive to their business even if it is not classified as PII.